Last few days since we came back from Vegas has been really intense trainingwise.
After a long tuesday night in Vegas, 4 hours of sleep and a 7 hour drive, we went straight to training in Rey Diogo's gym on Venice Boulevard. I had no energi at all, but managed to get some good rolls with people there. I also did some training with Rey, who is a really cool guy. He is often in Sweden, so I will invite him to Copenhagen next time.
Thursday I slept till 1pm, I was completely exhausted. We drove with Rigan to his gym in Hollywood where we had some really good training with a small group of about 8 people. After that we went to a release event with Rigan's brother John Machado. There was a boxing ring outdoors, where different martial arts did demo matches, it was pretty cool. I also met Mario Sperry there, I remember watching his instructionals when I first started training, so that was pretty fun.
Today we have trained two hours in Rigan's gym and about 1 hours in Rey's gym. Really good sparring both places. I had the pleasure of training with Chris Haueter, the guy who basically introduced me to Jiu Jitsu (he doesn't know though :D). It was his instructional tapes that got me started with my training, when me and my friend was watching them 7-8 years ago or so. It was a pleasure to train with him and we had some really good rolls. He is teaching a class monday night that I want to attend before we go back to New York tuesday.
So far, this trip has been really inspiring regarding Jiu Jitsu. I have met so many cool, friendly and skilled people here and it is awesome to get pushed so hard in training every time. Back home I know everyones game, so it is not as big of a challenge to roll, but here I really need to be working hard to succeed with every single technique I try.
Arrived in Vegas yesterday and walked around a bit to see the place. When we woke up today, we went to the Xtreme Couture gym to train. I took a grappling class at noon, where we did some standing up from being pinned against the fence. It was fun to do some specific MMA grappling with a cage. The facilities were amazing, definately the best I have seen, and I have visited a lot of gyms around the world throughout the years.
The trainer in the class was Dennis Davis, who has actually fought in a tournament in Denmark, that I was filming for TV. Funny coincidence. He was a cool guy and it was a great class.
We have decided to try and change our ticket back to New York, so we can stay in L.A. for a little longer. There are so many gyms and people I want to visit here, so it would be a shame to leave already tomorrow. We will still have a good week in New York, before we head back to Denmark.
Drove to Las Vegas today and had a chance to practice my Kung Fu in the desert.
Met up with danish UFC fighter Martin Kampmann and took a walk around. He is training in Xtreme Couture, where I am planning to do some grappling tomorrow before we check out the city. I really need to work out after sitting in a car all day :)
I might also check out some other Jiu Jitsu gyms here. My gi is in NYC though, forgot it in the gym there.
Today has been a great day. First, we went to Rey Diogo's gym to meet Andreh. As often when you share an interest with someone, you tend to get along really easy, and this was no exception. It was really cool to train a with Andreh, I got some good little details out of rolling with him, that I will take home and work on.
After training, we went to Venice Beach, where we rented bicycles and drove around a bit. Then we met up with Rigan, who took us to a party in Hollywood and then out for some great Brazilian food. I also got a chance to check out his gym, which looks really cool.
I really want to train more with all of these guys here in L.A., maybe I'll look into flying back to New York a little later, so I get some more days here for training :)
Went to Honda Center in Anaheim today to watch the UFC 76. What an experience! The place was packed, atmosphere amazing and best of all, the fights were awesome. Some of the best, technical grappling I have seen in MMA for a long time, it was pure beauty to watch. Especially Saraiva, Tavares, Sanchez and Fitch put on a beautiful grappling display. Occasionally I heard the "get up and fight like men" classic, but other than that, I enjoyed the fights very much.
Tomorrow, we are driving our Mustang to Venice, where I will meet and train with fellow Jiu Jitsu blogger Andreh. After that I am planning on meeting up with Rigan Machado, who recently taught a seminar in my gym, and hopefully do some training with him as well if I have any energy left :)
I don't wanna fill this blog with vacation photos, but here are two I took today:
The last two days, I have had some good training in the Ronin gym. Some good sparring and yesterday I taught a class on collar chokes.
Right now, I am sitting in JFK airport, headed to California to see UFC tomorrow night. I will try to find time for some training while there, but we will train for sure in Vegas, where we are staying monday and tuesday.
Arrived here in New York last night and just woke up. We are staying at a friends place in Brooklyn, right by the Verrazano bridge.
Have not really been training up to this trip because of my foot, I wanted to be sure that it was ready for training over here. Right now it looks really good, so I can't wait to get started with the training. Gonna meet up with my friend Christian and train in his gym, Ronin, tonight.
I will probably make a seperate travel blog for this trip, but every training related thing that I will be writing about will be posted in this blog. I hope to get a lot of good training and inspiration while here!
Better look up Marcello's gym as well. Leaving for Los Angeles friday, so I probably won't make it to that gym before I get back here in NYC next week (tuesday).
This is a pass I use a lot in my game. I was observing a very skilled danish grappler from another gym here in Copenhagen use the standing kneeslide pass in competition with a lot of success, so I decided to look into it and see what I could get out of it for my own game. With a few adjustments to make it fit me, I came up with this really simple and - for me at least - very high percentage passing series, which I ofcourse will share with all of you right away :D
The should work fine both with and without the gi, but I have had most success with it in no-gi. This is because I need to slide my arms in position pretty fast and thight, which can be difficult when wearing a gi.
This has been a perfect example of learning by imitating for me. Hope you can use it too! :)
I have this strange thing, that I get all my injuries in the left side of my body. I have injured almost every left part of me and almost none of the right ones. Toe, ankle, knee, hip, ribs, shoulder, elbow, fingers, neck.... I even have some cauliflower on my left ear only! :D
The past two weeks, I got another two leftside injuries for the collection. During a takedown setup, I stretched some muscles in my left shoulderblade, and this sunday I sprained my left ancle during a takedown where my foot got caught in a wrong position. The shoulder is fine now, but the ankle needs a few more days of ice and rest, before I can start using it again.
This is a basic tutorial on how I like to set up the armtriangle/heartattack submission from sidecontrol. For me, the most crucial detail to make this setup work, is how I utilize my entire body to move his arm into place instead of just my head. It is almost like a deadlift motion, which btw is an awesome excersize :)
Just a small detail on how I counter the double under pass using the stiffarm escape. Nothing special, just using it a lot so thought I would put it out here :)
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